What's Hot: Rugged yet stylish, reinforced corners and comes in a very nice selection of colors.

What's Not: None.

Reviewed by Tong Zhang

Urban Armor Gear Cases achieve the perfect balance between rugged material and construction with slim form factor and style. The UAG cases for the iPhone 5 comes in six different colors, each sports a cool name, and the one used in this review is a hot pink Valkyrie. All the UAG cases for the iPhone 5 uses the same hard shell with soft core material, the same rugged yet slim design and comes with a front protector film.

Design

At first glance, the UAG Valkyrie looks rugged with its pronounced ridges, the utilitarian screws, reinforced corners and oversized buttons. But when you install the case you'll notice that it's actually quite slim and light weighing exactly an ounce. The case has a hard exterior shell that covers the back, the two vertical sides and all four corners of the iPhone 5. The UAG case has rubber interior molded into the hard shell and secured with five small screws. The rubber pieces also extend to cover the corners as well as the top and bottom sides as the hard shell doesn't cover two horizontal sides. The rubber however is rigid thanks to the hard shell frame it braced onto.

The patterns on the exterior and the honeycomb on the interior are both designed to absorb shock damage should you drop the phone in the case. The reinforced corners provide strong support for the structure integrity. The case wraps around the sides and covers the front edge of the display, creating a solid barrier between the front glass and surface when you put the phone face down. To provide additional display protection, the UAG case comes with a film protector.

Features

The UAG Valkyrie for iPhone 5 is rugged but very functional. The case has cutouts for the ports that need to be exposed and covers the buttons that don't. The cutout for the silence button is generous which makes it easy to use the slider. The bottom cutouts line up with the audio jack, Lightning port and mic/speaker nicely. The rear camera cutout is large enough to give the lens full view and the flash to fully illuminate. The camera cutout also has black frame around to eliminate flash washing out pictures. iPhone 5's power button and the volume buttons hide under the rubber cover under the large and raised rubber pieces mark the spots. The oversized buttons make it easy to use the phone's buttons underneath, but they're also stiff enough so that you don't accidentally press these buttons easily.

Conclusion

It's not easy to find a case that's both rugged looking and slim and light. The UAG case for the iPhone 5 provides plenty of protection thanks to the two-layer material and a sturdy design, and it's quite slim and stylish. We love all the colors it comes in as the collection offers something for everyone. The case has serious structural protection and it's nice to get a film protector as well. All cutouts work nicely with the phone and the protected buttons are also very easy to use. The UAG Valkyrie is well made and fits the iPhone 5 perfectly.